EXCELSIOR And R.I.P., Make Mine Marvel etc.

>https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/stan-lee-marvel-comics-legend-721450?fbclid=IwAR28Rw26QHRDq-0WJI9utcGn_GTTDM1ZUTz1T1gyJNyuAWpt1z0gNp6EwGc
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>Stan Lee, Marvel Comics' Real-Life Superhero, Dies at 95
>10:47 AM PST 11/12/2018 by Mike Barnes
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>The feisty writer, editor and publisher was responsible for
>such iconic characters as Spider-Man, X-Men, Thor, Iron Man,
>Black Panther and The Fantastic Four — 'nuff said.
>Stan Lee, the legendary writer, editor and publisher of Marvel
>Comics whose fantabulous but flawed creations made him a
>real-life superhero to comic-book lovers everywhere, has died.
>He was 95.
>
>
>Lee, who began in the business in 1939 and created or
>co-created Black Panther, Spider-Man, X-Men, The Mighty Thor,
>Iron Man, The Fantastic Four, The Incredible Hulk, Daredevil,
>Ant-Man and other characters, died early Monday morning at
>Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, a source told The
>Hollywood Reporter.
>
>Lee's final few years were tumultuous. After Joan, his wife of
>69 years, died in July 2017, he sued executives at POW!
>Entertainment — a company he founded in 2001 to develop
>film, TV and video game properties — for $1 billion for
>fraud, then abruptly dropped the suit weeks later.
>
>He also sued his ex-business manager and filed for a
>restraining order against a man who had been handling his
>affairs. (Lee's estate was estimated to be worth as much as
>$70 million.)
>
>And in June 2018, it was revealed that the Los Angeles Police
>Department had been investigating reports of elder abuse
>against him.
>
>On his own and through his work with frequent artist-writer
>collaborators Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and others, Lee
>catapulted Marvel from a tiny venture into the world's No. 1
>publisher of comic books and later a multimedia giant.
>
>In 2009, the Walt Disney Co. bought Marvel Entertainment for
>$4 billion, and most of the top-grossing superhero films of
>all time — led by The Avengers' $1.52 billion worldwide take
>in 2012 — featured Marvel characters.
>
>"I used to think what I did was not very important," he told
>the Chicago Tribune in April 2014. "People are building
>bridges and engaging in medical research, and here I was doing
>stories about fictional people who do extraordinary, crazy
>things and wear costumes. But I suppose I have come to realize
>that entertainment is not easily dismissed."
>
>Lee's fame and influence as the face and figurehead of Marvel,
>even in his nonagenarian years, remained considerable.
>
>Beginning in the 1960s, the irrepressible and feisty Lee
>punched up his Marvel superheroes with personality, not just
>power. Until then, comic-book headliners like those of DC
>Comics were square and well-adjusted, but his heroes had human
>foibles and hang-ups; Peter Parker/Spider-Man, for example,
>fretted about his dandruff and was confused about dating. The
>evildoers were a mess of psychological complexity.
>
>"His stories taught me that even superheroes like Spider-Man
>and The Incredible Hulk have ego deficiencies and girl
>problems and do not live in their macho fantasies 24 hours a
>day," Gene Simmons of Kiss said in a 1979 interview. "Through
>the honesty of guys like Spider-Man, I learned about the
>shades of gray in human nature."
>
>(Kiss made it to the Marvel pages, and Lee had Simmons bleed
>into a vat of ink so the publisher could say those issues were
>printed with his blood.)
>
>The Manhattan-born Lee wrote, art-directed and edited most of
>Marvel's series and newspaper strips. He also penned a monthly
>comics' column, “Stan's Soapbox,” signing off with his
>signature phrase, “Excelsior!”
>
>His way of doing things at Marvel was to brainstorm a story
>with an artist, then write a synopsis. After the artist drew
>the story panels, Lee filled in the word balloons and
>captions. The process became known as “The Marvel
>Method.”
>
>Lee collaborated with artist-writer Kirby on The Fantastic
>Four, Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, Silver Surfer and X-Men. With
>artist-writer Ditko, he created Spider-Man and the surgeon
>Doctor Strange and with artist Bill Everett came up with the
>blind superhero Daredevil.
>
>Such collaborations sometimes led to credit disputes: Lee and
>Ditko reportedly engaged in bitter fights, and both receive
>writing credit on the Spider-Man movies and TV shows. "I don't
>want anyone to think I treated Kirby or Ditko unfairly," he
>told Playboy magazine in April 2014. "I think we had a
>wonderful relationship. Their talent was incredible. But the
>things they wanted weren't in my power to give them."
>
>Like any Marvel employee, Lee had no rights to the characters
>he helped create and received no royalties.
>
>In the 1970s, Lee importantly helped push the boundaries on
>censorship in comics, delving into serious and topical subject
>matter in a medium that had become mindless, kid-friendly
>entertainment.
>
>In 1954, the publication of psychologist Frederic Wertham's
>book Seduction of the Innocent had spurred calls for the
>government to regulate violence, sex, drug use, questioning of
>public authority figures, etc. in the comics as a way to
>curtail "juvenile delinquency."
>
>Stan and Joan Lee
>READ MORE
>Joan Lee, Wife of Marvel Comics Legend Stan Lee, Dies at 95
>
>Wary publishers headed that off by forming the Comics Code
>Authority, a self-censoring body that while avoiding the heavy
>hand of Washington still wound up neutering adult interest in
>comics and stereotyping the medium as one only kids would
>enjoy.
>
>Lee scripted banal scenarios with characters like Nellie the
>Nurse and Tessie the Typist, but in 1971, he inserted an
>anti-drug storyline into "The Amazing Spider-Man” in which
>Peter Parker's best friend Harry Osborn popped pills. Those
>issues, which did not carry the CCA "seal of approval" on the
>covers, became extremely popular, and later, the organization
>relaxed some of its guidelines.
>
>Born Stanley Martin Lieber on Dec. 28, 1922, he grew up poor
>in Washington Heights, where his father, a Romanian immigrant,
>was a dress-cutter. A lover of adventure books and Errol Flynn
>movies, he graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School, joined
>the WPA Federal Theatre Project, where he appeared in a few
>stage shows, and wrote obituaries.
>
>In 1939, Lee got a job as a gofer for $8 a week at Marvel
>predecessor Timely Comics. Two years later, for Kirby and Joe
>Simon's "Captain America #3," he wrote a two-page story titled
>"The Traitor's Revenge!" that was used as text filler to
>qualify the company for the inexpensive magazine mailing rate.
>He used the pen name Stan Lee.
>
>He was named interim editor at 19 by publisher Martin Goodman
>when the previous editor quit. In 1942, he enlisted in the
>Army and served in the Signal Corps, where he wrote manuals
>and training films with a group that included Frank Capra,
>William Saroyan and Theodor Geisel. After the war, he returned
>to the publisher and was the editor for decades.
>
>Following DC Comics' lead with the Justice League, Lee and
>Kirby in November 1961 launched their own superhero series,
>The Fantastic Four, for the newly renamed Marvel Comics, and
>Hulk, Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, Daredevil and X-Men soon
>followed. The Avengers launched as its own title in September
>1963.
>
>Perhaps not surprisingly, Manhattan's high-literary culture
>vultures did not cast its approval on how Lee was making a
>living. People would “avoid me like I had the plague …
>today, it's so different,” he once told The Washington Post.
>
>
>Not everyone felt the same way, though. Lee recalled once
>being visiting in his New York office by Federico Fellini, who
>wanted to talk about nothing but Spider-Man.
>
>
>In 1972, Lee was named publisher and relinquished the Marvel
>editorial reins to spend all his time promoting the company.
>He moved to Los Angeles in 1980 to set up an animation studio
>and to build relationships in Hollywood. Lee purchased a home
>overlooking the Sunset Strip that was once owned by Jack
>Benny's announcer, Don Wilson.
>
>Long before his Marvel characters made it to the movies, they
>appeared on television. An animated Spider-Man show (with a
>memorable theme song composed by Oscar winner Paul Francis
>Webster of "The Shadow of Your Smile" fame and Bob Harris) ran
>on ABC from 1967–70. Bill Bixby played Dr. David Banner, who
>turns into a green monster (Lou Ferrigno) when he gets
>agitated, in the 1977-82 CBS drama The Incredible Hulk. And
>Pamela Anderson provided the voice of Stripperella, a risque
>animated Spike TV series that Lee wrote for in 2003-04.
>
>Lee launched the Internet-based Stan Lee Media in 1998, and
>the superhero creation, production and marketing studio went
>public a year later. However, when investigators uncovered
>illegal stock manipulation by his partners, the company filed
>for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2001. (Lee was never
>charged.)
>
>In 2002, Lee published an autobiography, Excelsior! The
>Amazing Life of Stan Lee.
>
>Survivors include a daughter J.C. and younger brother Larry
>Lieber, a writer and artist for Marvel. Another daughter, Jan,
>died in infancy. His wife Joan was a hat model whom he married
>in 1947.
>
>Like Alfred Hitchcock before him, the never-bashful Lee
>appeared in cameos in the Marvel movies, shown avoiding
>falling concrete, watering his lawn, delivering the mail,
>crashing a wedding, playing a security guard, etc.
>
>In Spider-Man 3 (2007), he chats with Tobey Maguire's Peter
>Parker as they stop on a Times Square street to read news that
>the webslinger will soon receive the key to the city. “You
>know," he says, "I guess one person can make a difference …
>'nuff said.”
>
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